Quinoa Salmon Salad

Hello again! It must be time for another recipe blog, and this one is a real crowd pleaser! Perfect for a Christmas party or BBQ, or even just for packed lunches for work! This one is my own creation, it's a bit of a hodge podge of ideas that came together to make this delicious salad! Feel free to scroll straight to the bottom for the recipe, or read on if you'd like to know the back story! The quinoa base of the salad is inspired by a Hello Fresh recipe. My hubby and I get Hello Fresh about once a month to take the pressure off preparing meals for just a few days! I actually had a great conversation about this with my sister the other day; decision fatigue is a real thing, so pre-planning, like meal prepping or a service like Hello Fresh, really takes the brain work out of what's for dinner! I know for myself, if I haven't planned what I'm going to do with the mince I defrosted last night, by the time I get home from work, I don't have much mental capacity left to be very creative with what's for dinner! So it's my favourite thing to walk in the door and take a brown paper bag from the fridge and do what the recipe tells me to do, without having to actually DECIDE anything! Anyway, the quinoa base is used a lot in the Hello Fresh recipes, often topped with roast vegetables or some other delicious concoction, and I often have the leftovers in my cold packed lunch, so that's what inspired the salad base! The way the salmon is prepared comes from a dinner recipe inside the HSE program! The salmon is dipped in the coconut cream and curry and baked just enough to make it beautiful and succulent. I'm pretty sure that the original recipe calls for raw salmon fillets though, not smoked salmon pieces - but that's all I happened to have at the time, and it turned out so delicious that that's all I've done since! It's super easy to dry the fish out though, so be careful! And there you have it, super easy, fresh and delicious! I hope you love it, and it pleases your crowd as much as it did mine when I took it to a friend's for lunch!

Quinoa and Salmon Salad 200g fresh smoked salmon, thinly sliced 1/2 cup coconut cream 1tsp curry powder 2 cups tricolour quinoa 200g fresh or frozen spinach 1 tomato, diced 1-3tbps lemon juice Method 1. Cook quinoa according to packet directions, cook spinach if using frozen. 2. Preheat oven to 180°C. Combine coconut cream and curry powder and dip salmon pieces into mixture. Lay on a baking tray, ensure each piece of salmon is thoroughly coated. 3. Pop the salmon in the oven for 10 mins, just enough for the flavours to be absorbed, be careful not to overcook! Flake apart with a fork. 3. Combine cooked quinoa, spinach, salmon and tomato. Add lemon juice to taste. 4. Serve warm or cold. Keeps in fridge for up to a week, but best eaten fresh!